


Lady Lazarus

by RemingtonSteele



Category: Penny Dreadful (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Season 1 Spoilers, resurrection fic, season 2 speculation (and wishes!!!!)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-24
Updated: 2014-10-24
Packaged: 2018-02-22 11:08:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2505590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RemingtonSteele/pseuds/RemingtonSteele
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She takes her first full breath in years</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lady Lazarus

_Out of the ash_  
 _I rise with my red hair  
_ _And I eat men like air._

 

At first there is only darkness. She is cold, or perhaps she _is_ the cold. The cold and the darkness, and nothing else. An emptiness spreads out from all sides, vast and eternal, shooting small jolts up and down her chest.

Then she takes her first full breath in years.

And it fills her up like light.

Warmth blooms from the center of her chest and spreads in quick bursts, chest rising and falling in smooth movement and rhythm. It feels strange at first, and she doesn’t know why.

And then she remembers.

The rattling is gone. The stunted, pathetic breaths lined with blood and death—gone. The crushing beast that once sat on her chest for years and years, slowly suffocating her until she caved in and died. Gone.

Experimentally she flexes the fingers on one hand, reacquainting with each joint, each nail, each patch of warming skin. She breathes again. God she could breathe forever and ever and be satisfied with the smoothness of each inhale, each exhale.

She curls her hands into fists, feeling immense power in each movement, each section of applied pressure, as if she could crush anything in her hands if she so chose.

The ticking and whirring of machines surrounds her, but she pays them no attention, too entranced by the mechanics of her own working body. She lifts one hand up to her face, rubbing fingertips over the surface of eyelids, nose, cheekbones, stops above the mouth, hovering, feeling warm currents of air moving out past lips, dampening her palm.

Her hand moves down to her chest, resting lightly over the left side, feeling the powerful thumping of a heart as it continues spreading warmth all through her arms, shoulders, torso, legs, feet, toes, the balls of her feet. Every nerve coming to life like a million sparks. She is lightning. A force of destruction. Alive. Alive again, but more alive than ever before.

The corners of her mouth curve up.

She opens her eyes and the darkness evaporates.


End file.
